Page 44 of Persephone's Curse
Outside, Evelyn walked with Bernadette and I walked with Clara. I had the backpack cooler on and after five minutes, my shoulders were already aching, so I clipped the chest strap on and hefted it higher on my back.
It reallywasa beautiful day, and we cut into the park before turning south, away from the reservoir, taking a path that wouldlead us past Belvedere Castle, past the Ramble, which, if I had to pick, was probably my favorite part of Central Park. Thirty-eight acres of woodlands in the middle of the city. Our father claimed he had once gotten lost in the Ramble for three hours and though that may sound like an exaggeration, it becomes very believable if you try to navigate it without the aid of a cell phone.
Southeast of the Ramble was the Loeb Boathouse, and it was early enough that the line of people waiting to rent the four-person rowboats was small. We let Bernadette wait in the line and pay as the three of us hung back.
“Maybe after, we can go visit Alice,” Clara said. TheAlice in Wonderlandsculpture was east of here, and Clara had always been fond of it.
“Sure,” I said. “And the model boats, maybe.”
“Bethesda Fountain is close,” Evie added.
“Oh, we can reenact some movies!” Clara said, because Bethesda Fountain was featured in probably every movie that had ever been set in the city.
Evie smiled then, an actual smile, something I hadn’t seen for at least a week. She looped her arm through mine and laid her head on my shoulder and I smelled her hair, which needed to be washed, but still smelled so undeniably like her, like lukewarm coffee and old books and vintage wool, that my stomach gave a little flip. Everything was going to be all right. Evelyn was going to be fine.
A few minutes later and we had donned our life jackets and set off into the great blue waters of the Lake, the backpack by our feet, Bernie and me manning the oars, paddling west. It felt like sailing into a painting. The trees surrounding the lake were on fire with fallcolors—oranges, reds, yellows—and the calm surface of the water reflected everything perfectly.
“Okay,” Evelyn said after a minute. “Thisispretty beautiful.”
It broke the tension that had been building between the four of us. Clara laughed and dipped her hand into the water, Bernadette rested her oar against the side of the boat and took an enormous breath of air, and I unzipped the backpack and triumphantly pulled out the bottle of wine.
“What time is it?” Evie said.
“I know, I know,” I said. “But it’swhitewine. You know what Grandma says about white wine.”
“‘It’s never too early for a nice glass of chardonnay,’” Bernadette recited, in a very accurate impersonation of our father’s mother.
I poured three glasses and handed one to Bernie and Evie, then glanced at Clara and said, at her exaggerated frown, “Absolutely not.”
“None of you are twenty-one,” she whined.
“Right, but you’re fourteen,” Bernadette countered. “You can have one sip of mine.”
“One sip?”
“One sip or nothing.”
Clara, managing to still scowl during the whole process, took a sip of wine from Bernadette’s glass and then handed it back.
Bernadette, Evelyn, and I clinked glasses and took a sip. I didn’t really get the fuss about wine, but this didn’t taste so bad, and it felt really fun, drinking with my sisters in a rowboat in the middle of Central Park.
Clara stopped scowling after another minute or so and pulled apear out of the backpack. She took a bite, sighed happily, and leaned back against the side of the boat.
“How lucky are we, kids?” Bernadette said.
Clara laughed so hard she snorted, which made me laugh, and made Evelyn smile again, a wide, happy smile that caused my heart to balloon in size. She reached forward and dug around in the backpack, pulling out a wrapped wedge of Brie and a box of crackers. She kept smiling as she made each of us a cracker with a neat slice of Brie on it, passing them around before finally making one for herself.
“I can’t believe we’ve never done this before,” I said.
“I can,” Bernadette said. “We don’t really do touristy things.”
“Sometimes we do,” Clara corrected. “We’ve gone to Ellis Island.”
“That was a school trip,” Bernie said. “And you weren’t with us.”
“Oh, right.”
“This should be a new leaf for us,” I said. “Doing the things we’ve never done before. One new thing a week.”
